AMD World's First Six Core Sever Processor : Istanbul

OEMs such as Cray, Dell, HP, IBM and Sun Microsystems are already in the process of churning out new systems based on the new six-core AMD Opteron.

The really great thing about these new processors is that they can be used to field-upgrade existing quad-core Opteron systems as the same Socket-F connector is used. This works out as a real plus point compared to the Intel Nehalem Xeon processors as one would have to go for new main boards, systems, chipsets and sockets.

The Istanbul comes with a power-efficient DDR2memory architecture and AMD virtualization technology.

These new processors will already be available by the time you read this and would be a great upgrade to your existing Quad-Core Opteron, as long as your server vendor gives your system the needed BIOS update to move to the new processor.